It’s Called Currency

Have you noticed that the Sunday paper just doesn’t have the wealth of coupons that it used to? Back in the day, I was a mad coupon clipper. I looked forward to the hour I’d spend on a Sunday looking through the coupon flyers and cutting out the stack of gems buried within. I saved a good bit of money on my weekly grocery trips, especially when I could go on a double-coupon day. My personal best was probably in the neighborhood of $15 on a cartful.

Today, newspapers may have coupons, but they’re few and far between. [Read more →]

Tags: cashflow management, marketing, spending less by Julie Ann Dunn
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This can be a tough question. After all, most people just “pay the bills” and get on with it. But what about those times when money is tight or you’ve got an especially large bill that’s going to affect your monthly finances more than usual? Does food rank above entertainment in your spending plan? Does transportation come before recreation? Do shelter and utility payments get made before you pay on any credit cards? Are you properly prioritizing your spending, or is your money spent in whatever category is yelling today?

At the top of your list, as your highest priority, should be your rent or mortgage payment, followed by the various utilities that keep your shelter comfortable, and then food. [Read more →]

Tags: budgeting, cashflow management, priorities by Julie Ann Dunn
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I’d probably have to say that the first book I read—really read—on money was Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey. At that point, I’d already been through a first marriage and divorce that had left me with over $30,000 in debt to pay off. I was in my second marriage, all the previous debt had been paid off, and my new husband and I were trying to make sure we were on the road to sound money management. We’d both stumbled along until then, gleaning what we could from family and friends, trying desperately to learn from other people’s mistakes as well as our own so we wouldn’t be repeating them. [Read more →]

Tags: books, cashflow management, education by Julie Ann Dunn
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You probably think of budgets as straight jackets for your money, that putting down on paper (or into a computer spreadsheet) just where your money is going to go each month is too confining, too restrictive.  But like water, money needs to flow. If you don’t clearly define where it will go, whether it’s a holding tank for a future need, or directly into the current of your daily spending, your money will just slip through the cracks, dripping out of your life.

One simple concept that made budgeting much less confining for me is the “blow money” category. [Read more →]

Tags: budgeting, cashflow management by Julie Ann Dunn
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Have you ever thought about the fee they take with that cash withdrawal in terms of the percentage of the transaction? Most people don’t. Folks pay $2 or $3 and think nothing of it. But if you’re getting $10 out of the ATM and you pay a $3 fee for it, you just paid 30% for getting YOUR OWN MONEY. And unless you’re lucky enough to bank where they will reimburse you those fees, you’ll never get that money back. [Read more →]

Tags: cashflow management, saving, spending less by Julie Ann Dunn
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Tags: budgeting, cashflow management by Julie Ann Dunn
No Comments »